The Palm House at Kew

I’m really enjoying being back in the suburbs and re-visiting old haunts. And so to Kew Gardens again, I made several drawings of it years ago when I was mainly working in pen. This time around I have been trying out some new oil paints, Windsor & Newton’s Artisan range, in sketches. These paints are odd in that they are oils designed to be used and cleaned with water, but I like them, and have just been messing around with them with no particular method. I’ve started out using them on watercolour paper, which means that they absorb and dry fairly quickly, just like watercolours. But they have the pliability and dense colour of oils that respond to streaking, mixing on paper and dry brushwork. After my last fiddly cacti painting, I wanted to paint quickly and freely and respond to the changing colours of the light in the afternoon.